Five First-Place Finishes Paces Louisiana at LSU Purple Tiger

BATON ROUGE – Chandler Mixon paced a 1-2-3 finish in the men's 60-meters hurdles as he nearly missed a personal-best in the event while the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Track and Field team earned first five-place finishes during the season-opening LSU Purple Tiger on Saturday at Carl Maddox Field House.

Nathan Fergusson, Trejun Jones, John Joseph and the women's 4x400-meter relay joined Mixon with first-place performances as Louisiana returned to competition for the first time in 326 days when it completed action at the 2020 Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships.

Jones, Reagann Leleux, Brock Appiah and Taylor Davis set or tied personal-bests in their respective events in the 11-team meet.

Mixon clocked a time of 8.13 seconds - .01 off his personal best – to claim the 60-meter hurdles with Yves Cherubin (8.14) and Tahj Whitfield (8.17) finishing second and third overall. Jones set a PR in the 60-meter dash for the Ragin' Cajuns as his time of 6.76 seconds in the final to edge Southern's DeAnthony Nervis and Kristopher Brown by .01. Appiah, who set a PR in the 60-meters (6.93) in the preliminaries, finished fourth overall (6.94) with freshman Warrick Baker finishing fifth (6.97) in his collegiate debut.

Fergusson claimed the men's 400-meter dash for Louisiana with a time of 50.65 while Joseph paced a 1-2 finish for the Ragin' Cajuns in the men's triple jump (48-1 ¼) with Rylan Theyard finishing second (47-8 ½).

Louisiana claimed the women's 4x400-meter relay after the team of Reina Ryan, India Brown, Emoni Coleman and Ta'La Spates posted a time of 3:58.87.

After setting a personal-best in the 60-meter hurdles in the preliminaries (8.74), Leleux came back with another PR (8.70) to finish third overall for Louisiana with Kennedy London (8.79) finishing fifth and Serenity Rogers (8.89) sixth.

Davis tied a personal-best in the women's high jump for the Ragin' Cajuns after she cleared the bar at 5-6 ½ to finish fourth with Frankie Griffin (5-2 ½) fifth. Ariel Young posted a mark of 37-10 ¾ in her debut in the triple jump to finish third overall in her Louisiana debut with Davis finishing fifth (36-3 ½). Taylor Walls added a fifth-place finish in the women's long jump with a mark of 17-0 ½ with Brooklynne Wilson (43-1 ¾) and Nya Terrell (41-1 ½) finishing fifth and sixth overall in the shot put.

Freshman Aalliyah Allen finished second in the 400-meter dash (1:00.42) for Louisiana, Coleman was third in the 600-meters (1:38.67) and Johneisha George fourth in the 60-meter dash (7.69).

Freshman Tyren Hannah earned a second-place finish in the men's shot put (49-1 ¾) in his collegiate debut with the men's 4x400-meter relay team of Appiah, Jahmad Booth, Hargrove and Fergusson finishing second (3:22.69). Obdarius Ware posted a third-place finish in the men's long jump (23-10) for Louisiana with Golden Eke finishing fourth (22-9 ¼) in his Ragin' Cajuns debut.

Tyrell Hargrove (1:22.31) and Caedmon Kyles (1:58.91) each earned third-place finishes in their respective events (600 meters/800 meters) for Louisiana with Solomon Brent (1:26.76) and Rashid Reese (2:00.06) finishing fourth respectively.

Louisiana will return to action on Friday when it travels to Birmingham, Ala., to compete at the Samford Invitational at the Birmingham Crossplex.

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